Tuesday, January 31, 2017

I'm sharing the wording from my recent letter-writing efforts to my state and national representatives for those who want ideas on where to begin. Do feel free to borrow my ideas and wording and get shit done.

In 2001 my mom
suffered a traumatic brain injury when was hit by a teenage driver and thrown
from her motorcycle one night on her way home to her 6 children, ages 3 to 19.
She spent three days in a coma and even her surgeons didn’t know whether she
would survive.

She did, and
after months in rehab, she finally came home with a shattered wrist and leg
that would leave her physically disabled for the rest of her life, and
permanent brain damage that prevented her from working full time and made it
difficult to hold down a job at all.

An
irresponsible driver ended the life that she had known.

She lived
without health insurance for nearly a decade before the ACA eliminated
pre-existing conditions as a barrier to coverage and finally gave her the
medication she needed for the chronic pain and depression the accident gave
her.

Please
protect the Texas families who need health insurance and who face impossible
odds with exclusions due to pre-existing conditions.

It is your
job to represent us and our families. It is your job to protect us. I hope you
do.

Texas is the
uninsured capital of the United States. More than 4.3 million Texans—including
623,000 children—lack health insurance. Texas’ un-insurance rates are 1.75
times the national average. Without an alternative health care plan in place,
it is no hyperbole to say that millions of Americans will die when the ACA is
repealed.

Sexual
violations are already illegal. Sexual predators are already prohibited from
preying on women. We’ve already seen what damage that bathroom bills like SB 6
do to local businesses as in the massive boycotts in North Carolina.

Trans women
ARE WOMEN, and the people just want to pee.

This Texas
woman, and every Texas woman she knows, is against SB 6 and any bathroom bills
like it.

I urge you
to oppose Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos, whose confirmation
hearing proved that she lacks both the experience and qualifications to lead
the Department of Education.

I’m a local
reading tutor as well as a content and copy editor for Dallas-based Istation,
an education technology company producing programs that help struggling young
readers. What these kids and these communities need is change from within and
help from people who are familiar with the public education system and its
opportunities for positive change. DeVos does not fit the bill.

Our young
learners deserve a Secretary of Education who has experience with public
education and who wants to see schools succeed.

Thank you
for using your voice to represent Texas students and the educators and
community members who work to enrich their education experiences.

And it has
enabled millions of women to not only start families when they are physically,
financially, and emotionally able to but also allows millions of women to
continue caring for the children they have. The Guttmacher Institute found that
61 percent of women who terminate a pregnancy already have at least one child.
They already know whether they can care for a baby.

Medical
decisions are for patients and their doctors, not politicians.

No matter
your personal feelings about abortion, women and children—teenagers and girls
even younger— deserve access to medically sound information and safe
procedures. The World Health Organization found that banning abortion does not
decrease the numbers of abortion; it increases unsafe abortions and kills
women.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Inspired by a friend's Facebook status, this is a bit more stream-of-consciousness musing than narrative or informative."Religion was a wonderfully effective cloaking
mechanism for the obsessive, racing thoughts," my friend wrote. "Oh, good god," I thought. I was raised
Catholic, and I'll never know how being indoctrinated with incessant guilt
precisely influenced my growing up with constant anxiety, but I'm still mad as
hell.

Getting treated for depression (wellbutrin now) and
self-diagnosing adult ADD (both within the last 3 years) has helped me A LOT in
managing my anxiety. Learning about executive dysfunction and that I'm not just
a fuckup has been key. When I feel on the verge of a meltdown, I can now
recognize it for what it is, treat myself with compassion, and work through it,
and often avoid it.

Regular mindfulness meditation sometimes helps me, yoga
definitely helps, developing specific habits as a reaction to ADD has helped:
training myself to put my keys, glasses, phone always in one of two places they
belong; training a habit of making a mental note of the location of my car in
relation to the building I'm entering EVERY SINGLE TIME; and perhaps others I
don't even consciously recognize.

Learning to treat and act upon "maybe" feelings as
if they are a "No" in physical/romantical situations has been HUGE.

I feel like Orlando broke me, and I had to pull WAY back
from SJ/political posting and engagement on FB. My mood/anxiety have been a lot
better because of that choice, but there's still that old guilt.

Completely quitting web dating for 8 months at a time was
AWESOME for my anxiety and stress levels.

I'm slowly learning to recognize earlier when I'm becoming
overwhelmed in a place or situation and giving myself permission to turn down
invitations, cancel plans, and leave abruptly (as needed), trusting that good
friends will understand and not take it personally.

I worry I'm framing this all as happy successes, but the
truth is that it's taken a lot of damn work to get here, and I still go through
cycles of needing to see a therapist regularly and not infrequently taking
mental health days from work.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Last night I attended a panel presentation on refugee camps
around the world. I learned some interesting things that everybody ought to
learn as well.

There are 65 million displaced people in the world and 23.1
million refugees. For reference, the population of Texas is just under 27
million. In order to attain (obtain?) "refugee" status, it must be
ruled that a person, for their own safety, CANNOT return to their country.
Period.

And there are countless stories of people denied refuge who
obviously need/deserve it, so that 23M number is egregiously small.

On misconceptions: Refugees aren't illegal immigrants
pouring across borders. They go through months and years of paperwork, vetting,
and red tape to be "refugees." Sometimes the UN grants the status
and/or it goes through the State Department of the US. It isn't easy to prove
one's identity (when one has, for example, escaped in the middle of the night
with nothing but the clothes on their backs) or provide any proof that they
would be harmed or killed if they returned home.

The refugee camps that the speakers described were pretty
horrific. Some of them went from living in modest houses in areas just like our
towns to immediately living in dirt-coated camps without electricity, running
water or even clean water, or any kind of safety or security. Many people in
the camps suffer and die from diarrhea and dehydration on a regular basis.

Violent combat continues just adjacent to camps and spills
over into them as well. Some of the speakers' most vivid memories are of seeing
bullets and bombs light up the night sky just above their heads when they were
children.

They come to America to save their families, to start a new
life, and to escape the violence—not to perpetuate it. They are VERY THOROUGHLY
vetted before being settled here.

Maybe you can share some of this when family members speak
disparagingly of refugees as vermin rather than human beings who are suffering
and afraid for their lives.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I have run three times in the month that’s passed since finishing
my December 10 marathon. I’ve done a bit of yoga and parkour as well and more
walking than usual, but it’s still a marked difference from my previous
activity level.

I believe strongly in choosing enjoyable movement to benefit
your mind and body, not as punishment or a chore.

Race training was difficult and riddled with aches and
pains, minor injuries, and illness. The race itself was pretty awful. I knew I
would need a break from running for my emotional and mental health, but I wasn’t
sure how I wanted to fill that hole to maintain my physical and mental health,
or if I even wanted to fill it. I’d missed spending hours sitting and making
arts and crafts, and I was so SO tired for so long.

I met my goal of finishing my first marathon, but the
process of getting there wrecked the balance of exercise in my life.

I no longer want to train or race. I don’t want to keep
hurting from the sheer volume of pounding the pavement. And I don’t know how to
find joy in running again.

I’m letting my pool membership lapse because I hate having
to drive to another city to swim laps at 5 AM in order to get a lane and get
back before morning rush hour. I really want a membership for the rec center
across the street from my house, but I cannot stand the idea of tolerating
January-resolution crowds. I can and do use the fitness center at my office,
but it has limited hours and I have to split the work day to get equipment and
space to myself.

I enjoy yoga and weightlifting and walking and hiking, but
will these be enough for my bones and my brain?

I have a strong interest in parkour and hip-hop dance classes, but the evening schedules are hard for me to attend, and I had to cancel last night's parkour lesson because of a migraine (which is likely to happen again).

I hadn't run in two weeks but woke today to a glorious 60-degree morning and laced up my sneakers to go hatch some Pokémon. I ran more today than I had the last two times I tried (both were shockingly challenging and painful and quickly turned into very long walks), and it felt really good. I don't think it necessarily marks a significant transition, but it is one good run, one good day. And that ain't nothin'.

I'm working hard to trust my brain and my body to do what they need to do for now.

And I'm meeting each day one at a time, adopting a bellydance teacher-friend's classroom rules as a personal mantra: